


What Remains Behind

by MiraMira



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Family, Gen, Mental Illness, One Shot, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Augusta Longbottom's feelings toward both plants and people are more complicated than they appear, as two hospital visits across the years illustrate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Remains Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Adapted from a Hogwarts_Elite challenge. Title is taken from William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality."

**1981**

"I want them gone."

"Ma'am?" The orderly, a petite little blonde thing who barely looks old enough to have left Hogwarts, turns her attention from Alice's feeding to observe Augusta's pacing. Alice dutifully keeps her lips parted, waiting for the dangling spoon to reach her.

"The flowers," Augusta clarifies, holding a vine of bluebells disdainfully before letting go and setting it swinging with gentle chimes. "I want them cleared out of here. They make this room look like a funeral parlor."

"These are from the Longbottoms' coworkers, madam," the orderly explains hesitantly, glancing about as though hoping one of her own coworkers will appear and relieve her of the responsibility of dealing with this irregular situation. "And various well-wishers…"

"They can wish my son and daughter-in-law well by ensuring that the fiends who did this receive the punishment they deserve. Not wasting their time and Galleons on these trifles."

The orderly makes one last attempt to restore calm. "Our healers have found that in many cases, patients respond well to stimuli such as…"

"Does he _look_ any more responsive to you?" Augusta explodes, thrusting forward an implacable finger until it nearly grazes Frank's marble cheek. He does not blink; his shallow breathing does not alter. This, strangely, is not what prompts her loss of composure: like any normal, well-raised young man, he long ago gave up seeking out or taking pleasure in her maternal caresses. But to see him surrounded by the natural, wild beauty that had been so lacking in her home and his workplace, and which he had sought out and cherished all the more for its rarity – that is more than she can bear.

Not that she has any intention of explaining her reasoning to this ninny. "I will be back tomorrow, and I want them gone. See to it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Augusta storms out, hat perched as firmly and as high as it will go on her head. She maintains this attitude until she arrives home, where she curls up in a corner of the half-finished nursery and bursts into wails as keening and forlorn as baby Neville's.

The next day, she makes arrangements to have her garden dug up and replanted with a tasteful arrangement of Self-Trimming Shrubs. She does not go out to supervise the work.

**1996**

"Mum, Dad, look." Neville holds up a pot of gently glowing purple blossoms with large yellow centers. "It's a cross between a Shrinking Violet and a Radiating Sunflower. Professor Sprout helped me graft them, but I came up with the idea myself. You can keep them in a dark room, and they'll adjust to fit whatever you put them in." He waits in vain for a reaction. "I'm going to leave them here for you." Slowly, he gets up and leaves the flowers on the windowsill, glancing behind him the entire way.

The return trip takes him much less time. He slumps back into his seat, gaze now firmly on the floor. "Happy Christmas."

Augusta, who has been watching her grandson's monologue from across the room, comes over and places a hand on the back of the chair. "Neville, dear, we have at least another hour. Do _try_ and be cheerful."

"Sorry, Gran. I just hoped…" He sighs. "Never mind. It was a silly idea."

_Silly_, is, in fact, the exact word Augusta has been thinking since Neville brought the plant home, but his downcast expression forestalls any lecture she might have in mind. "It's the thought that counts, dear. They would be--are very proud of you, I'm sure." She pauses, Minerva's terse note of admonishment very much in her thoughts, as it has been since Neville came home for the holidays: his desperate, fumbling eagerness to please replaced by a quiet determination. He may take after his mother in appearance, but more and more, it is Frank she sees when she looks at him. "I certainly am."

His glance up is as brief as his grin, but it lifts the air of melancholy from the room. "Thanks, Gran."

"Neville." Her nails suddenly dig into his shoulder, and her voice is tense. "Look."

Neville does, grabbing her hand in astonishment. Alice has climbed out of bed, her own fingers outstretched to touch the flowers, a faint spark of intent concentration visible in her eyes. Frank, the weaker of the two, is limited to sitting up. But for the first time in as long as either Neville or Augusta can remember, he directs the vaguest trace of a smile straight at them.


End file.
